HP Announces Android-Powered SlateBook 14 Laptop (Again)

In a bit of early news before the big sea of Computex-related releases hits, HP has officially pulled the curtain off a brand-new Android-only laptop. The 14-inch, Tegra-driven Android laptop, dubbed the HP SlateBook 14, will be available on August 6 for a mere $399.

(Yes, this is the same laptop that HP accidentally listed on its site in April.)

Like one's typical smartphone Android experience, the HP Slatebook 14 will use a full touchscreen for its 14-inch display have fun poking and prodding at your PC in order to activate various parts of Android. It also comes with a typical trackpad, for those more used to a conventional PC experience.

Other key Slatebook specs include the laptop's overall size: Approximately 16 millimeters thick and weighing just around 3.75 pounds. It ships with 64 gigabytes of onboard storage and comes with a microSIM card slot for those looking to add a little more. Two gigabytes of memory will join an Nvidia Tegra 4 processor  the highlight of the laptop's guts  to allow it to display 4K video should one desire (though the screen itself is a mere 1928-by-1080-pixel resolution). Total battery life is estimated to be around 9.25 hours or so.

Connection-wise, the laptop will come with two USB ports (we're not quite sure yet if that's USB 2.0 or USB 3.0) in addition to a single HDMI port.

If the thought of running Android apps on such a large display seems daunting, HP is allegedly adding a few tricks of its own that will allow Android apps to run full screen on the 14-inch display sans issue.

According to HP, the overall notebook has been designed to target millennials who love Android, but want a bit more productivity than what they'd otherwise be able to get out of their smartphones or tablets.

Additionally, the Android ecosystem has plenty of apps compared to what one might otherwise be able to find on ChromeOS  the other big operating system in the low-cost PC space. That's partly what made an Android-powered laptop so alluring to HP, as well as the fact that Android is a lot more customizable over ChromeOS. It's also a lot cheaper for HP to implement in a laptop; ChromeOS, in contrast, comes with more stringent system requirements that would cost HP a bit more.

David Murphy got his first real taste of technology journalism when he arrived at PC Magazine as an intern in 2005. A three-month stint turned to six months, six months turned to occasional freelance assignments, and he has since rejoined his tech-loving, mostly New York-based friends as one of PCMag.com's news contributors.
His rise to (self-described) fame in the world of tech journalism began during his stint an associate editor at Maximum PC, where his love of cardboard-based PC construction and meetings put him in charge...
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